Summary

History

K. Bielawski /

The beginnings of Jewish settlement in Raszyn date back to the end of the 18th century, when Piotr Tepper, a banker, became a landowner of the town. According to “Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich"[Geography Dictionary of the Polish Kingdom and other Slavic countries”], published one hundred years afterwards, Tepper “temporarily provided shelter there for Jews that had been ousted from Old Warsaw in 1784 under a decree of Michał Mniszek, the Marhall of the Crown. Formation of a Jewish district in Raszyn meant for the town arrival of the same disadvantages as in case of a former Jewish settlement that was called “New Jerusalem” and was established in the year of 1775 beyond the Jerozolimskie bounds of the town. That was the reason why the prohibition was soon annulled."

A history of Raszyn Jews has not been researched in detail yet. Their presence in Raszyn is mentioned in a book entitled “Dzieje Raszyna i Falent” [“A History of Raszyn and Falenty”] written by Honorata Kaszuba. It is known that a little Jewish community was subordinate to a synagogal district in Nadarzyn but it did have its own house of prayer, which housed a school too, most probably a heder. The deceased were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Kajetany near Nadarzyn.

Data of the 1921 general population census in the area of the then municipality of Falenty say that 103 Jews lived there, among whom sixty-three lived in Raszyn, twenty-two Jews lived in Łazy, eight resided in Dawidy, four in Grabów, two in Grabówek and three in Łaszczki. Honorata Kaszubska stresses that merely 5 Raszyn dwellers declared to be of Jewish descent, which may prove that a big part of Jews were very much assimilated.

During World War II Jews from Raszyn were transported to the Warsaw Ghetto. Most probably it was from there that they were later taken to gas chambers in Treblinka. The Nazis kept a group of some thirty Jewish workers who were forced to do farm chores in an estate in Falenty.

After the liberation merely few people of Jewish origin came back to Raszyn.